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Yesterday, I was just trying to attach a DIME attachment to my soap message and send it to a WSE 2.0 enabled web service resides on my virtual server (VMWare). I was getting “Message Expired” or “An error was discovered processing the header” all the time. It was obvious that this was happening on the client since soap request was not reaching to the server (I was monitoring the server by MSSOAPTrace and nothing was there). After I did a lot of changes to the client I came to realize that Date and Time on the server was out of synch with client. That was all about it.

When it comes to sharepoint deployment, site definitions are preferred the most. People often rely on site definitions more than custom templates. I agree that it gives you more control on every thing, but it is not always the best solution and it truly depends on what you want to accomplish. In this article I would try to give you a high level understanding of both solutions and you got to decide which one suits you the best.

1) Custom site definitions:

Advantages:

Data is stored directly on the Web servers, so performance is typically better.

Full control over look and feel of site

ASPX pages can be defined as ghosted modules. Ghosted files are not copied into site content and are directly read from site definition (They are stored in the directory in which site definition exists) and cached on the web server. Any changes to these files are automatically propagated to all sites which are based on the site definition. For example add “ this is a changes” to default.aspx page in one of the site definitions (e.g: STS). You will see this in all default.aspx pages of the sites which are based on the site definition. As soon as you make a minor change to a ghosted file through Front page it becomes unghosted and added to the site’s content.

A higher level of list customization is possible through direct editing of a SCHEMA.XML file.

Certain kinds of customization to sites or lists require use of site definitions, such as introducing new file types, defining view styles, or modifying the drop-down Edit menu.

Disadvantages:

Customization of site definition requires more effort than creating custom templates.

Any error or inconsistency in site definition related xml files prevent site definition from working.

Changes to site definitions must be done one by one and after each change you must restart IIS and check to see if your change has not broken anything.

Most of site definition files are xml based and altering them requires a good understating of xml elements and attributes used in these file. However share point SDK fully covers them.

I tried using ghosting with an HTML page , but it did not work because HTML pages are cached differently than ASP.NET pages.

Effective 20th of March, I am no longer working for CGA Canada and instead I will start my new career as system analyst (on contract basis) at ExxonMobil. I am quite excited to get this job as it will allow me to literally use my skills to make a real contribution and more rapidly prototype my new ideas. CGA was a great experience, but things started to move so fast in both my personal and professional life in a way that I could not go wrong. I guess I’ve decided NOT to work for success alone, but for success and significance simultaneously.